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The 7 Personal Finance Articles We Loved This Week

December 7, 2017

Recently, we’ve been really interested in sharing different stories of people living on a small income in big (read: expensive) cities. (See here and here!) It’s super helpful to see these stories if you’re trying to reach a financial goal and don’t know how or where to cut back, and it’s even more useful to see such stories if you yourself are living on a modest income.

I really enjoyed J. Money‘s pick from Corporate Monkey CPA this week, as it details one family’s expenses while living in Bolivia — while bringing in just $10,000 a year. It’s interesting to see how the costs of living there are so vastly different due to a number of different reasons. It really puts things into perspective:

In the U.S. in the 1950s, a typical family house was less than 1,000 square feet. Over the last several decades, as Americans started making more money, they bought bigger and bigger McMansions. Americans plowed their money into bigger houses and racked up mortgage debt, when they could have been saving and investing for their freedom instead. Now we think living in a 3,000 square foot house is somehow normal…. but I digress.

Here in Bolivia, people living on $10,000 still live in modest houses, like America in the 1950s. It’s not suffering.

Be sure to check out the full post, as well as the rest of this week’s great picks!

“The wealthiest person in the world is NOT the person with the most money. The wealthiest person in the world is the person who has the ability, time, money, energy, and freedom, to go on an adventure in life and achieve their dreams no matter how big, crazy, or wild they are.”

“On October 26, 2012, I bought 100 Bitcoins for $1,017 USD on the recommendation of our lead developer at the web firm where I worked. As of November 28th, 2017, my Bitcoins are worth almost exactly $1,000,000 USD. At least, that’s what I wish I could tell you about the first time I heard about Bitcoin…”

“The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.”

“Have you ever stopped to think about what it would be like for your family to live on less than $10,000?… Our California family is finding out for ourselves. We are currently living in a small Bolivian village for a year. Here’s what it’s like living on $10,000.”

“Since I’ve now got my sales figures for this stretch of time in hand, I’ve written up a blow-by-blow account of how the illustration’s been used and how much I’ve made from it – before and after a brush with viral attention.”

“Most people overcomplicate business. They think of business as a fortress. They must lay siege to it. But if you have a single paying customer, then you are in business. You now have a place inside the fortress.”